Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
DOROTHEA LANGETo know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
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The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects. So that no one would say, how did you do it, where did you find it, but they would say that such things could be.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually … I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.
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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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I encountered that many times, in unexpected places. And I have learned to recognize it when I see it.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realize it.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Photography today appears to be in a state of flight… The familiar is made strange, the unfamiliar grotesque. The amateur forces his Sundays into a series of unnatural poses.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
This benefit of seeing…can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully at a quiet image…the viewer must be willing to pause, to look again, to meditate.
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It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
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The words that come direct from the people are the greatest.If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.
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I trust my instincts. I don’t distrust them. They haven’t led me astray. It’s when I’ve made up my mind to be efficient that is when I have gone wrong.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
DOROTHEA LANGE